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LLNL, Ampera partner to develop thorium-based TRISO fuel
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has formed a strategic partnership with Ampera to develop the company’s nuclear fuel concept through a project named THUNDER, for Thorium Unimodal Droplet Ejection for Reactors.
The focus of THUNDER is fabricating TRISO made with kernels of thorium rather than the usual uranium. LLNL and Ampera will evaluate and optimize liquid metal–jetting technology to produce highly uniform, spherical kernels of thorium-232 for later processing into TRISO fuel.
Mitsuru Kambe, Masaki Uotani
Nuclear Technology | Volume 122 | Number 2 | May 1998 | Pages 179-195
Technical Paper | Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT98-A2861
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
To enhance the inherent safety of the fast breeder reactor (FBR), unique attempts are being made in reactivity control systems design to achieve maintenance-free and reliable performance at the Central Research Institute of the Electric Power Industry. The design involves the lithium expansion module (LEM) for inherent reactivity feedback and the lithium injection module (LIM) for inherent ultimate shutdown. Reactor physics calculation revealed the reactivity worth of LEM and LIM in a 60-MW(electric), metal-fueled FBR and a 1000-MW(electric) mixed-oxide-fueled FBR. The system dynamics analyses revealed that LEM and LIM are effective to avoid sodium boiling in unprotected transient overpower and unprotected loss-of-flow transients. Reliability, maintainability, and real-time monitoring for LEM and LIM are also discussed.